


Realizations

by TiedyedTrickster



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Canada is quiet, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Discovery, Gen, but there's a reason for that, secret, secretly BAMF Canada, this is the reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2259003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiedyedTrickster/pseuds/TiedyedTrickster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canada is quiet and easy to overlook, everyone knows that. But what if there's more to this near-invisibility than meets the eye?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Realizations

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, just a little something that popped into my head, and made so much sense that it had to be written… Born of a love for Canada and some interesting facts about its military that a friend told me at University.

Matthew smiled as Gilbert turned the page of his sketchbook and whistled.

“Damn, Mattie, these are amazing!” his eyes scanned the picture of a moose surfacing from eating plants on the bottom of a lake, then turned to the next page, where a wolf bitch looked up out of the paper at him sleepily as she nursed her pups. Prussia whistled again. “Seriously! How do you find the references? Where do you get the ideas?”

Beside him Canada smiled shyly. “I don’t make them up – I draw them from life.”

“No shit?” Prussia turned the page again. More of the wolves, but now the bitch was sleeping as her pups romped all over her. “How do you do it? Really good binoculars or something? You must take tons of equipment with you!”

Canada shook his head. “I only take my sketchbook and my charcoal. I was a few feet away when I did the ones of the wolves. I’m familiar with that pack.” He added before Prussia could press him further.

Prussia turned to gape at him and demand how Mattie pulled that off, then stopped as something occurred to him. Canada got overlooked a lot of the time – his quiet voice was ignored, and his presence was so subtle that at times people forgot he was in the room. These traits caused problems at the meetings with other nations, and Prussia had been trying to help Canada become more noticeable.

But now it occurred to him that much of Canada’s land was unpopulated, untamed wilderness. And as these things coincided in Prussia’s mind, an image began to form.

Canada, walking through the forest, sketchbook in hand, silent as a ghost. The image shifted a bit. Instead of his normal jeans and sweatshirt, Canada wore the leather clothes of his native people. His hair was longer, darker, and pulled back in a braid, though his skin was still pale. He carried a bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows on his back. He walked with other figures, a hunting party. They spoke in low tones, but Canada spoke at his normal volume. Out here, away from the noise of the cities, it carried clearly, and to speak any louder would be to scare away the prey, as would drawing attention to yourself.

It came to Prussia in that instant that Canada wasn’t the way he was because his pacifist attitude made him weak – it was because he was a predator, and they had all been seeing him in the wrong setting. Mattie was a hunter – one who wouldn’t frighten away game with a loud sound, even if he was startled; who could probably have walked right up to a deer before it knew he was there.

Not that he needed to. Canada was an excellent shot. Prussia shuddered as he recalled the various stories and victories he’d heard of involving Canadian snipers over the years. Mattie didn’t need Ivan’s bulk or Alfred’s super-strength – he’d be done and gone before anyone knew he’d been there…

“-bert, Prussia? Hallo?”

Prussia blinked and realized he’d been staring into space for the past few minutes. He turned to Canada with a half-grin on his face. “Sorry, just thinking of something. You’re really something else, you know that, right?”

Canada smiled.


End file.
